Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The William J Moore and McCleary's Spirit

As I said in the last post, I was down on the Detroit River again tonight. I decided to try a different boatwatching spot because I wasn't quite sure how much time I would have before the ship I was waiting for. As I was leaving the car, I saw the below ship coming upriver. So I hurried up to get to a spot along the river.

Turns out the vessel is the tugboat William J. Moore and the barge McCleary's Spirit. The Moore was born at the Adelaide Shipyard in Australia. She was known as the tug Warrawee-12/70. I would imagine the 12/70 part was due to her commissioning in 1970.

She was later resold and renamed the Seaspan Raider-76, then Raider-87 and the Alice A.

At one time she was the largest highest horsepower tug in the Australian Fleet.

In 2002, she was modified to her current configuration and mated with the McCleary's Spirit. I presume it was around that time she got her current name.

About Me

I was born in Bay City, Michigan and for the most part I was raised there. My dad was in the Navy, so I spent my first 5 years in Hawaii, Texas and California. For college, I went to Eastern Michigan where I studied Engineering Physics. I caught the photography bug when my mom had me take a photojournalism class in High School. I dabbled a little after college but it never really took off until a couple years ago.
If you would like to get a hold of me...e-mail is kozzie_13 at yahoo dot com. Obviously use the @ and . in that.